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Reviews
Sucker Punch (2011)
Visually attractive, but not more than that
Conceptually interesting and visually entertaining, the script and characters are lacking in their ability to hold the viewer's interest.
Directed by the guy who brought us 300, it's clear that cerebral qualities were told to take a backseat in this production. It almost,but not quite, works, with the whole film, relying heavily on music to set the tone, feeling like a mix between Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and your random Japanese absurdist anime. However, though the viewer is thrown in headfirst and treated to a visual spectacle, as soon as the plot becomes obvious, there's little to keep the viewer entertained. And not even the short skirts on the quite girls can change that.
Features a cover of The Smith's Sing me to sleep.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Well...
Of course, you cant expect much when having to watch the movie in a pirated version with Russian voiceovers. However, exactly that makes it easier to be less swept away and, in a way, make more unbiased comments on the movie in some aspects.
I found the first half hour much too rushed, as if too much plot preparation had to be pushed through intime for the finally. The last hour though was very nice, classical great stuff. All in all, however, not as good as the previous installments.
Sibirskiy tsiryulnik (1998)
A great movie.
Although this movie is suffering from a shaky script, Sibirskij tsiryulnuk makes for a very entertaining movie. The pretty face of Julia Ormond, the beautiful camera work of Franco Di Giacomo and Pavel Lebeshev, the terrific classical music and the story, that is nothing more than a spiced up love story, combine to something that is much, much more than the sum of its parts. The Barber is an entertaining, very funny cinematic ride that doesn't bore for any one of its 180 (yep it's that long) minutes.
Julia Ormond is Jane Callahan, coming to Moscow to help her father out in obtaining funding for some technical project he is working on. Nothing more than a framework to accommodate the love story between Jane and Andrei Tolstoy (no connection to the writer) as played by Oleg Menshikov. Oleg, already an actor since 1981 (!), is doing a very good job as the tormented lover caught in-between his love for Jane and the military academy he's studying at.
There are some bad voice oversee, some of the acting isn't fully up to par and some scenes or part of some scenes are totally unnecessary. But, the rest of the movie easily makes up for the minor mistakes made here and there. Halfway through the movie, Jane and a Russian general she is trying to convince in sponsoring her fathers project, visit a Russian carnival. Having a hard time in trying, she convinces the general, who doesn't drink, in taking a vodka. From there on, its 15 minutes of Hilarious fun, where the general turns out to be an alcoholic, tries to conquer Napoleon and almost joins in a staged fist fight between some 75 half naked men.
I expected a bit more of a classic in the making when I went to see the Barber. Something more of an epic. I definitely didn't get what I was expecting. But the movie is nice to watch, being funny and entertaining. Yes, the script leaves some strings untied, but still, worth a screening.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Poetry. Period.
This is not a movie. This is pure poetry. This is not a story. This is life.
Easily the best production of the year. A visual feast and highly intelligent. Simply too much for words.
The Truman Show (1998)
The scariest movie ever made?
This is the scariest movie I have EVER seen. You know that the plot is about 'true man' Burbank, discovering that his whole life is a TV show and that everyone he knows is, in fact, an actor, paid to let him think his life is 'heaven on earth'. Why is it scary? The Truman Show is about the ultimate conspiracy. A conspiracy that can actually pull it off for 30 years of this man's life. Creating a make believe world where nothing is even close to what it looks like. And it IS believable. In Truman's world, about 5000 cameras are positioned around the gigantic set. Although the government-is-watching-you-scare is now less than it used to be, our lives are becoming more and more public. Not in the least because of this great Internet. But mainly because media is bringing everyone much closer to each other and giving us the opportunity to know much more than before; Making information available on every subject possible. What then, can assure us that eventually our lives will NOT be like Truman's? One big show, for everyone to see. And fake from the bottom up.